During the three week section of the spring semester of 2010 I volunteered at Immanuel United Methodist Church and helped with the Buddy pack program. This program is designed to provide food for low income families over the weekends during the school year. This experience was rewarding in the fact that I was able to contact a numerous amount of families that will benefit from this program. If I had the ability to take this class again in the future I would.

My time spent at the Salvation Army in Quincy made me very humble and grateful. When I first walked in to the food pantry I did not know what to expect. I was shown to a room full of can goods and box dinners and told this is were you will make family food boxes. In my mind I was thinking this was going to be a hard day. Putting together each food box together I felt terrible thinking about the families. But when I was told I would have to give a food box to a family, a different feeling swept over me. Taking the box to the office and watching it be handed to someone lifted me to see his smile. Overall, even though the day started off bad it ended in me being glad with the work I had done.

Check out a few photos on this blog. At least they are there if I did it correctly. These are the first photos I have tried to post. I will email Kyle later this morning to have him check to see if they are correctly posted.

Hi. A little explanation of this class and its purpose might help. I am a Professor of Business Administration at Culver-Stockton. This blog is for my Spring three week Business Ethics class. I wanted to try something a little different this semester for a class that I have taught for many years. The new curriculum at Culver allowed me to do this because of the three term. I wanted to connect business ethics to the idea of giving back to the community and give students a unique experience. Mike Snell, a pastor and alum of C-SC is involved with Project Berea. This project supports mission work in Mexico in conjunction with the Instituto Biblico Berea in Los Cristales Mexico right outside Monterrey. There have been three mission trips from Culver-Stockton in the past three years. I went last year and had an awesome experience. I wanted my Ethics class to combine a study of ethics with service work and a visit to some companies in Mexico. But I had some students who wanted to take the Ethics class but were unable to travel to Mexico. So the college gave me permission to allow those students to do service work in the Canton area while the other students were in Mexico. So the blogs here by students will talk about Mexico and visiting a government agency there and Carte Blanca and doing mission work in Los Villarreales, a village about 45 miles NW of Monterrey; they will also talk about working at the Canton Christian Church food pantry, the Salvation Army, a woman’s shelter, and Horizon’s Social Services serving lunches.I think the class worked very well. The students with me in Mexico painted, gave out food baskets, mixed concrete, experienced Mexican culture and visited two Mexican companies and saw a bit of the beautiful city of Monterrey. The students here experienced the satisfaction of serving others and got comments like, "Brightest and Best Students Ever!" Good representatives for Culver-Stockton College!” Read on for some interesting insights.

During the last full week of April, Monday April 26 through Friday April 30, I spent close to seventeen hours working in the kitchen of the St. Johns church on 7th and Hampshire in Quincy, IL. I was volunteering for the Horizons Soup Kitchen of Adams County; it was a great experience! All meals served are prepared by the volunteers that day, and most of the food is gone by the end of the hour that food is served. Peggy Grant is the manager of the soup kitchen. Now, St. John’s kitchen is just where the meals are served because Horizon’s doesn’t really have a place that is available, but I do believe that they are looking for someplace. I say that this was a great experience because I have never really thought about what goes into making someone a meal for a day, when they have no other options, and I would love to go back again during the summer. The meal may not sound that great, or look that great, but it’s food to put in your stomach, and this week all the meals were pretty good, if I do say so myself. The people that volunteer their time here are wonderful. They know most of the people that go through the line by their first names; they know what they like to talk about, and they know what to ask. There is one person who always comes in last, or pretty close to last, and they know that he/she will be asking to take some extra with them. They know that he/she will ask what kind of milk is being served that day. Some don’t really like that, but I guess they just do it because they know that no matter what it’s the right thing to do. I think that if there was one thing that came out of this, is that you should always be thankful for the people and things that you have in your life, because some people may not have those same luxuries, and you shouldn’t take them for granted. I’m going to end my little ramble with, if you feel you would like doing this, you should give it a chance, they would love for you to come in and help, it doesn’t cost anything except for three hours of your time, to help someone else. Also they have started a food pantry, small but hopefully growing, so if you would like to donate some items they would muchly appreciate that as well.

What I learned most from the out of class experience, while working at the Canton Christian Church, was how grateful and thankful people are for your services. The help that I did at the church seemed very insignificant due to the small task that I had, but to the church it was a blessing and to the people that it helped was even a bigger blessing. The experience was very worthwhile and I would definitely do it again. I feel that there was a connection between the class and what I did because the church helps out everyone in need, not caring about really what they have done or are doing. They are just there to help with no questions asked.

One of my favorite parts of this trip was the people we encountered in Mexico. Even though I do not speak much Spanish, which made it a little difficult to communicate, we still were able to connect with them. One day we went into a very poor area called The Ant Hill. We took food and water to some of the poor families there. The people were very happy to see us, but it was not just the food they were happy about. They were eager to talk to us and, especially the little kids, to play with us. We played a game with one little boy in which we used a shovel to throw a soccer ball to him. He was so excited as soon as he saw us coming he ran to get the shovel. These people had unbelievable living circumstances. The houses were one or two rooms which sometimes did not have floors, just dirt, and most of their possessions were just out in the yard. While they had very little possessions, these people had just as much happiness, if not more, as the people that I see everyday. It was hard to look at their circumstances and not feel sorry for them and better than them in some way; but I do not think that was the case. Nothing makes me any better than them, just different circumstances. Sometimes it is easy to forget this. They are people just the same as us. One of the people who took us there told us that it was important that we shake their hands and touch them. That is important in their culture and makes them feel accepted. The food we brought them was important for them to live, but by accepting them and loving them as equals we helped them to feel like they are important and their lives have meaning to someone. I think this is something I need to remember in my everyday life, sometimes it is easy to ignore people and treat others like they do not matter as much, but it does some good to take some time to show them that someone cares and they matter.